9-22-2011
Friday Night Lights
The Malibu High School football field needs lights for night games. There should be no controversy about that: after all, who wouldn’t want their kids occupied with wholesome school based activities that parents and school officials participate in on Friday nights? Currently, they only play afternoon games and most parents can’t watch their kids play those games. Few issues are this open and shut. But it is Malibu, so this has become a two-year controversy.
You might have heard me talking about how crazy LA has become before and have been skeptical about the depth of the crazy. I have some letters to the editor about the football field lighting controversy from The Malibu Surfside news, one of the two major local Malibu papers. This is just from one week.
I’ll read some of the letters to you just so you get an idea of what I live around and why I have so few friends in the area.
POLLUTION
Editor:
According to the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, excessive night lighting is now recognized as a form of pollution.
There are so many reasons not to have night lighting at Malibu High School, I thought I would write some of them down. I’m sure many people may have not heard of the Western Conenose Bloodsucking Bug, which is prevalent in the Malibu High School area. These parasites feed on the blood of squirrels, wood rats, and other rodents in the area.
Especially in the spring these bugs fly out towards bright lights at night to feed. Humans are a favorite for the Conenose, but we do not have an evolved immunity to the secretions of their bites. When they bite a human, with their stiletto-type mouth parts, the Conenose inject substances like an anesthetic which will cause drowsiness so they can feed on their victims blood undisturbed.
These substances can also produce anaphylactic shock and even death. A mayor of Westlake died of a bite. At best a mild reaction produces a hot, red, swollen goose egg on the skin. Lights at the Malibu High School might just be inviting hordes of this pest into the neighborhood, which could be a public health issue as well. One may not be safe indoors either, since the Conenose can enter through crevices in a home.
Another would-be problem could be rabid bats. Bats feed on the many moths and insects that are attracted to the lights. If there is plenty for them to eat, they will start to roost in the neighborhood. This summer alone, there were at least 12 rabid bats found in Moorpark, and one man was bitten in his driveway while walking to put out his trash. Bats will also bite dogs, cats and livestock.
With the bright lights, we could also have an issue with bird migrations along the coast at night. Night traveling birds navigate by the stars. With the bright lights, they could get confused or dazzled by the lights.
Another negative impact is that the annual cycles of growth and reproduction in trees controlled by day length can potentially be altered by supplemental lighting. This night pollution could affect the diurnal pattern of natural light that trees use as seasonal cues. It has been known since the 1940’s that it is the duration of uninterrupted darkness during a 24-hour cycle that governs developmental processes in trees, such as dormancy, shoot growth, and flowering.
With all of these concerns and more why should we be lighting up the night skies of Malibu?
Linda Joslynn
Now, I don’t want to say that Linda Joslynn is crazy but bloodsucking moths that killed a mayor? 12 Rabid bats? Confused birds? These lights are going to kill all of the plant life around them. These vampiric moths can get into the crevices of your home: none of us are safe. North Korea has it right: we should ban all lights in America. We’ve all been living in grave danger and have not even known it!
Michael Brown, in a second letter to the editor, gives us even more reason to be terrified of the illumination of a football field for six nights a year:
Here is the second one.
Editor:
The Malibu residents who want night lights at the high school are right to want to create a spirit of community and an opportunity for youth to play sports. Everyone wants these, but at what price?
Is it worth dividing the community over? When Westmont College decided to install similar 18-foot-tall stadium lights for night baseball, the residents of Montecito and Santa Barbara said, “No,” and the college dropped the idea.
When Palos Verdes Peninsula High School decided to install stadium lighting for night games, local residents said, “No,” and the school board voted to prohibit night- time football.
The reason coastal residents don’t favor stadium lighting is because we live with low clouds and a marine layer which causes light to reflect back to earth. This is termed sky glow pollution. This means that while a group of persons under the stadium lights is enjoying themselves, a group of persons 20 times that size is blinded by the immense sky glow pollution that destroys their views of the ocean, mountains and night sky– eliminating for possibly 100 nights a year the very reasons they moved to Malibu.
There are lots of ways to create community spirit and provide sports for youth without blasting wildlife out of their nests and destroying ocean and mountain views for residents for miles around.
Michael Brown
It’s funny: in my experience, lights have helped me see the ocean and mountains through illumination but I stand corrected: not only will the birds and plants be blinded by these lights, and Malibu will be destroyed but so will we!
There is only one solution: Michael and Linda are right, but I think we should go one step further: we should tear down all of Malibu High School and build an insane asylum: we need to get these people off the street. These ideas can be contagious: and children might hear: after all, without football, they have nothing better to do.
I’ll include a link on my website with a link to the Malibu Surfside News if you need a laugh, go through the archives: the “against” outnumbers “for” 10 to 1! The letters are on page 9 of the pdf file.
If you don’t believe me about the tone and the substance of the letters to Editor, you can view the letters for yourself here
http://www.malibusurfsidenews.com/archives/09152011.pdf
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